Felix chooses a side, and turns to ask the others for input but is abruptly stopped. "You've made your choice," Moapa says. "The more difficult path of the two, it seems."
"So we're making it easy on you? You're welcome," Sheba says, but Moapa scoffs and turns away, joining his two teammates at the starting line of the other path.
Kraden clears his throat. "I'm sure I wouldn't be able to keep up if I followed along, but please allow me to count you off."
Moapa gruffly allows it, as Sheba, Jenna, and Piers join Felix at the other start line. Jenna tugs at her hair to tighten her ponytail, a nervous gesture that she'd been informed would probably damage her hair, but continued to do anyway. Sheba squints at the cave-like door opneing in front of them, trying to see inside and get a hint for what awaits them. She almost misses Kraden counting down, it's only Felix launching from the spot next to her that spurs her into movement as well.
The instant they enter the first room, Felix's eyes are darting around, mapping the place out.
"Piers, those posts," he says, and Piers pauses, then snaps his fingers and says "Oh!", moving to Pound the white posts into the ground using Psynergy. Sheba realizes after a moment what they're doing—creating a path with the more stable free-standing posts. She waits until Piers and Felix are done moving and resetting posts, and then climbs up to follow that new path to the first door.
Upon reaching the chest at the end, Felix barely hesitates before stripping off his armor and shirt, leaving him bare-chested—she knows the shirt is unnecessary, since the chest armor had all the weight, so he'd probably just taken off his shirt for practicality. Either way, she's not going to stop him. The treasure chest snaps shut as the door opens, and Sheba appreciates the sight of his broad shoulders as she runs behind him into the next room. Jenna rolls her eyes and laughs, and Sheba bites back the urge to retalitate with a joke about Isaac.
By about the third room, Felix is glistening with sweat and she has to shake herself before she can focus on the puzzle in front of them. He's moving another pillar, but when she tears her eyes away from him she sees a simpler solution. She ducks past him and casts Scoop on a small hole in the ground. A jet of water shoots up from the cracked ground, carrying her with it, but it's shorter-lived than she thought it would be. She just barely catches herself on the cliff above it and has to pull herself up the rest of the way by her arms—the Sheba from a few months ago, sitting up in a tower, definitely wouldn't have been able to do that.
"Up here!" she calls, to get the attention of the others, and Felix looks up at her in surprise before his eyes light up in excitement. It really clicks with Sheba then how much Felix is loving this. He'd seemed very invested in the puzzles at Venus Lighthouse and the elemental rocks they'd climbed, and it seems this is no exception. He relishes a challenge.
Piers had sacrificed his armor in the second room (Sheba had somehow honestly forgotten he was actually more built than Felix, especially in the upper body), so Jenna volunteers next—she thinks for a second and then unlaces the heavy, armored belt she'd been wearing and places it into the third chest.
The fourth room is a breeze, and they're finally approaching the last treasure chest. Sheba's already sliding her fingers into the buckles of her armlets, tugging them off and practically flinging them into the chest as she heads to the door.
"We're gonna beat them up there," Felix says, shooting her a grin and sprinting ahead, up the stairs and into the sunlight above. They reach a plateau marked with flags, and sure enough, it's only the four of them for now. Sheba places the Shaman's Rod off to the side, on their end of the platform, and joins Felix and the others in waiting for Moapa.
The next minute or two passes in relative silence, as the four of them try to catch their breath and stretch. Sheba can tell that the air is a little different this high up, almost like it passes through her lungs too quickly.
Piers reaches into his pocket and pulls out two Psy Crystals. "While we're waiting, anyone feeling tapped out? Sheba?"
She mentally runs a check on herself—tired, but not exhausted. She can keep going. "It was just the running that got me, really. I can still cast."
"Attagirl," Jenna says, ruffling her hair. "We can take 'em ourselves, do you boys just wanna hold the Shaman's Rod and wait over there?"
"And what, you'd have all the fun? No chance," Piers says.
"You could keep score," Sheba suggests, and Felix laughs quietly.
"How do you 'score' physical combat?"
"Headshot is ten points," Sheba begins, but then the door to the other side of the trials slams open and the joviality abruptly stops. Back to business. Moapa and his men rush up to meet them, and Sheba gets the distinct satisfaction of watching shock rush across Moapa's face when he sees they've beat him.
"You may prove a challenge yet," Moapa observes. "But let us begin!"
He's scarcely settled into a fighting stance before Jenna singes the ground in front of him with sweeping fire, startling him into leaping back and coming dangerously close to the edge of the platform. Felix moves in with sword drawn, obviously trying to catch him before he recovers, but one of Moapa's men blocks the hit before it can land.
Sheba shuts her eyes, reaching out to feel the direction of the wind. At this higher altitude it's much easier to get a sense of things, and she uses that to her advantage. The other one of Moapa's men tries to come at her from the side, obviously interpreting her posture and closed eyes as a sign of weakness. His mistake. Sheba blocks his hit with her staff and shoves him back, then opens her eyes and strikes him with lighting she pulls from the sky. He staggers, and Piers stuns him by hitting him smartly with the pommel of his sword. He staggers, and then raises his hands in surrender—Piers gestures theatrically to the sidelines of the arena, and Sheba snorts.
The ground jolts violently under her feet, and even as she stumbles slightly she feels no fear, as a glance to Felix confirms her suspicions that it was his doing. He stands with his feet planted firmly on the ground, a solid rock in the chaos of the fight, a soft green glow enveloping him. She slips up behind him and stands with her back against his, using the relative safety at the origin of the quake to strike again with lightning, hitting the second of Moapa's men this time.
She feels a sudden rush of heat, and Jenna's fire blasts past her to hit the same man Sheba had just electrocuted. He raises his hands and steps off of the arena in surrender, as Sheba grins excitedly and high-fives Jenna in celebration. Felix squeezes her shoulder and leaves her, lunging across the field to take down the man that Piers had previously stunned.
Sheba has a brief moment of confusion when she realizes she's lost track of Moapa in all the excitement of their first win. She spins around and finds him cornered by Piers on the edge of the stage. She can see Moapa's energy is flagging and can't resist, sweeping in under Piers's arm and striking the finishing blow herself. Her staff hits him under the jaw on its upswing, and Moapa falls to his knees, defeated.
"Ten points," she says breathlessly to Felix, who, to her surprise, laughs out loud. Sheba brushes her sweaty hair off her face, then joins Felix and the others as they regroup at the center of the platform. Moapa pushes himself up off the ground to stand before them, looking exhausted but—finally—impressed.
"You have proven yourselves," Moapa says, "and you are heroes indeed. After many years, the vow that Hoabna made to Yegelos has at last been fulfilled!" He hands the Hover Jade to Felix, who in turn gives him the Shaman's Rod. After all it had been through with them, Sheba's a little sad to see it go.
But this puts us closer to Jupiter Lighthouse, she reminds herself, and my past.
Sheba's curiosity about the stone must have shown on her face, because Felix holds it out to her. She gladly takes it, turning it over in her hands. It's larger than her palm, flat, and smooth—so smooth it's almost soft.
Out of nowhere, she feels nauseated and wavers on her feet. "Sheba!" Jenna says sharply, but her voice is distorted through Sheba's ears, like she's underwater. Sheba's knees buckle underneath her, the stone still gripped tightly in her hands, and her mind flickers in and out of consciousness. She vaguely feels someone lifting her and carrying her...somewhere.
Where they're going isn't important. What's important is, this had happened to her once before. It was several weeks before Babi's men came to take her away. She'd fallen ill and seen visions in her mind of a man with long blue hair and dark, secretive eyes; of losing her grip and falling into the ocean. She'd been out for nearly twenty-four hours and worried Faran sick.
And this time? Archers, an arrow of light. Alex's voice, saying "Consider it a gift." A huge tower, undoubtedly Jupiter Lighthouse. Jenna, raising her sword to defend against Karst's scythe. A boy with blond hair and purple eyes that she vaguely remembers from somewhere, but can't place where or when.
She awakes with a full-body flinch, as her hands clench into fists and her nails bite into her palms. She squeezes her eyes shut tightly enough that she sees stars, desperately trying to commit to memory everything she'd seen.
When she finally opens her eyes, it's to a low wooden ceiling, and unfamiliar white stone walls. They haven't brought her back to the ship, then. And someone had changed her into her bedclothes. She tilts her head to the side to see Felix sitting on another bed several feet away, running a cloth over the blade of his sword. He doesn't notice at first that she's woken up, but glances up once and then does a double take when their eyes meet.
"You're up," he says, setting his sword aside and moving to stand next to her bed. "What happened?"
"How long was I out?" she asks, avoiding his question and dreading the answer to her own.
"Three days," he answers, and she feels hot, angry tears well up in her eyes. Three days she'd kept them in Shaman Village, when they could've been moving forward! Three entire days!
"Hey, hey," he says, brown eyes growing wide. He drops to one knee next to her bed and grabs one of her hands in both of his. "Sheba, what's wrong?"
"Why didn't you bring me back to the ship?" she says accusingly, rubbing at her eyes and trying to ignore the way her voice had cracked.
Taken aback, Felix blinks at her. "At first we thought you'd overexerted yourself and just needed to sleep it off, Psynergy sickness or something, but when you didn't wake up after a day... We didn't want to move you. And you had a bad fever."
"But we could have been traveling all this time!" she exclaims, yanking her hand away from his and sitting up, pulling her knees to her chest and hiding her face in her folded arms. I'm crying too hard for someone my age, over something so small, she thinks miserably, but she can't stop.
The bed shifts as he sits next to her. She fights to control her sobs, hating the fact that it has to be him seeing her this way.
"Sheba..." His hand rubs up and down her back, soothing. "You never answered my question. What happened to you?"
She shakes her head and doesn't look up, not wanting to admit anything of what she'd seen. He sighs.
"You were talking in your sleep," he says, and she knows he feels it when her shoulders tense up. "Piers said it was Anemosian. None of us understood a word, not even Kraden."
"I don't speak Anemosian," she says, her stuffed nose forcing her to fumble over the word. It's the truth, but she vaguely remembers Faran saying she'd been mumbling to herself the first time this happened. Maybe it was the same thing then. Felix laughs softly, still with his hand resting on her.
"I know you don't. That's why I'm worried."
She sniffles again, and lifts her head to look at him. "Why does Piers know what that language sounds like?"
Felix hands her a handkerchief, and she blows her nose. "Apparently it has some vocabulary similarities to ancient Lemurian, which he does understand, and from there he sort of connected the dots," he says. "Still waiting on that answer."
She looks down at the bedspread, then back up at him. "I don't know what happened."
"Liar," he says, but it's gentle, there's no anger in his eyes. She shakes her head in denial, and he just sighs. "At least just tell me if you're hurt."
"I'm not," she says, and this time he seems to take it for truth. He stands, then leans over and kisses the top of her head.
"I'll wait outside. We can head out and say our goodbyes to Moapa when you're dressed."
She stares after him as he picks up his sword and leaves the room, closing the door behind him. What on earth was that kiss supposed to mean? Was he patronizing her? Trying to express that he was glad she was alive? Or...could he possibly have feelings for her after all?
She lets out a sharp exasperated huff of breath, and stands up to get dressed. Even if she's right and he really does care about her in a romantic way, it's not as if it matters. For Jupiter's sake, they have a quest to deal with. Hormones and silly crushes have no place in their world right now.
She remembers how useless she'd felt at the beginning of their journey, small and weak and constantly afraid. No wonder Felix and Jenna had been hesitant to bring her along. They probably aren't worried for her so much anymore, they know she can at least hold her own in a fight, but this three-day fainting episode probably hasn't helped her case.
Upon exiting the inn's bedroom, she almost immediately runs into Jenna. She'd probably been coming to check on her after seeing Felix leave.
"Hey, you're up!" Jenna exclaims, throwing her arms around her. "I'm really glad you're feeling better, we were all so worried!"
"Thanks. I, um... I must have needed the rest."
Jenna pushes Sheba away, holding her at arm's length with hands still on her shoulders. "Listen, you let me know if you ever need to take a break, okay? You've been pushing yourself really hard recently, and I don't want this to happen again."
Sheba just nods. "I will. Thanks, Jenna."
Taking her hand, Jenna pulls Sheba up the stairs to meet with the others. "And if my brother makes it seem like you're not trying hard enough, just tell me. I'll singe his eyebrows off."
"But why would he—"
"He just tends to push people too hard sometimes, without meaning it. You know how he is, he doesn't get that other people have physical limits. Just because he can fight and sail the ship and not sleep for a long time with minimal food intake doesn't mean the rest of us can."
Sheba has to assume that there's some story behind this, probably from before she'd joined the cause. Jenna doesn't talk much about the times when it was just her, Felix, and Kraden traveling with Saturos, Menardi, and Alex—and naturally, Felix says even less. Her general impression is that it had just been a stressful time for everyone involved, and she doesn't want to push any further. She'd only traveled with Saturos and Menardi for a few weeks, tops, but even she had noticed the change in their little group's dynamic once the two of them and Alex were gone.
The five of them leave town after eating lunch with, and then saying their goodbyes to, Moapa. It takes an uncharacteristically small amount of cajoling to get Felix to leave the cooks alone, and head back, and Sheba has a suspicion that it's because of her holding them up. Upon returning to the ship, Piers leans over the map in the lounge, and Sheba joins him.
"If we sail overnight and don't make stops, it shouldn't be more than a few days' journey to Atteka," Piers says, tracing a finger along the paper.
"Atteka?" Sheba repeats, following the invisible line he drew.
"Mm-hmm." He taps the continent in question. "We'll probably need to land here in this bay, then up north a bit should be Contigo, where we can rest for a night before taking on the lighthouse."
Sheba's stomach drops. The lighthouse is only a few days' journey away. After all this buildup, all the hoping and praying she's done, she's a few days away from finding out if it's been worth anything. And after all that, even though she desperately wants answers...at the same time, she's terrified. What if the lighthouse has nothing? She knows for a fact that Felix had had questions about his quest and the way his life had played out, but it didn't seem as though he'd had any particular revelations when Venus Lighthouse was lit. And from what she'd seen of Isaac, it didn't look like he had, either. Though to be fair, they had all been focused on other things—namely, not dying.
"Are you all right?" Piers asks, and his concerned expression tells her she must have spaced out.
"I'm fine," she says, forcing a smile. "It's just so crazy knowing that this is going to be the third lighthouse. After this, we only have Mars."
"It's all quite exciting, isn't it?" he muses. "I never in my life thought I'd be part of something like this."
"Neither did I," she says, hearing the melancholic tone in her own voice that she hadn't meant to let through.
"I suppose both of us had fairly unorthodox ways of coming into this, didn't we?" he says, smiling good-naturedly. "I feel a little out of place sometimes, seeing how closely Jenna and Felix are tied to this quest. I'm sure you'll prove invaluable at the upcoming lighthouse. Meanwhile, if I hadn't been arrested in Madra, I would have never met you all. It just seems so arbitrary."
Sheba shrugs. "I think we Adepts have a way of finding each other. Even if you hadn't been arrested, we'd have tracked you down eventually."
"Are you saying I was destined to find my way to this group?"
"I do believe in destiny," she replies. "There are countless ways we could have met you. We needed a ship when it seemed like no one had any, and you did. That's one possibility. Madra was raided by the Kibombo, and even if we didn't have to go after you, Felix would have wanted to help the Madrans. So there's another."
"And don't forget that we did need a Mercury Adept with us," Felix says, and Sheba jumps—she'd completely missed his entrance into the room. "Given that our only other option was Alex." The little curl to his lip gives away exactly how displeased he'd been by that possibility, and Sheba smirks.
"So I'm the lesser of two evils?" Piers says, and Felix grins.
"You could say that."
"Have some respect for your elders," Piers says, but he's laughing. "Were you coming in here to ask if I could help raise anchor?"
"If you wouldn't mind. I'm sure I'm not the only one ready to get moving."
As she watches them go, Sheba feels another stab of guilt. They could've been long gone from here if it hadn't been for her. Felix clearly hadn't meant for it to come across as a jab at her, but it still stung. Dejected, she wanders downstairs to her room and flops across her bed, grabbing a worn-out novel from her bedside table and attempting to read.
A good hour goes by, and then she realizes she's halfway through the fourth chapter and still hasn't absorbed a word. Her body, after three days of unconsciousness, is itching to do something. She hops up off the bed again, and digs around under her bed for a spare mace, which she then carries upstairs to the deck.
Felix is manning the wheel, as she'd been expecting. She swings the mace in both hands, and the motion, along with the nice whoosh sound it makes as it flies through the air, catches his attention.
"Careful where you swing that thing, I like my head where it is."
"Spar with me," she says, completely dropping the pleasantries. He shakes his head.
"Sheba, I'm kind of driving a ship here."
"So tie the wheel to something to force it to go straight. Look around, there's no cliffs or anything in eyesight. We'll be good for an hour at least." She keeps swinging her mace around and his eyes track the path of the head, a little worried line between his eyebrows.
"If I say yes, will you stop swinging that thing around like that?"
"I'll start swinging it at you instead," she warns, and he shrugs.
"At least then I know when to dodge."
He ends up going to get Piers to handle the ship in his stead, and Piers agreed once he learned that Sheba's alternative suggestion had been "tie the wheel to something." Sheba makes Piers promise to stay out of the fight, having a sneaking suspicion that he'd try to help her out, which defeated the point of sparring one-on-one. Once Piers is stationed behind the wheel, Felix retrieves his sword and tosses the sheath out of the way.
I really didn't think this through, she realizes as they circle each other. Felix staring her down, fairly massive sword gripped in two hands, is intimidating even though she knows he'd never actually hurt her. After a moment, she decides it must be his eyes: Those huge brown eyes, capable of carrying so much warmth and kindness, are also capable of catching even the tiniest details. He watches her every movement, and she wonders if he can tell that her hands are already sweating. She shifts her grip on her mace.
"You're too close to the head, you won't hit hard enough like that," he says, while he continues circling her. "Why're you using a mace anyway, I thought you liked the staff you had now."
"I just want to get better with maces, in case we find another one later that's better," she says. "I feel like they do more damage."
"Not necessarily, it all depends on how you wield it." She fakes a lunge towards him, thinking that maybe the talking could've distracted him, but he doesn't even flinch. "You broadcast your movements too much."
"Maybe if you weren't staring so hard..."
"Sorry, am I making you nervous?" The slightest trace of a smirk plays around his lips. It makes her stomach flip, and that kind of annoys her. Who does he think he is, doing that in the middle of a fight?
"I'm not nervous at all," she says, sending a tiny bolt of lightning sparking across the deck at him.
"Hey, ow—" It's cheap, but she takes advantage of his momentary distraction to actually leap across the deck at him this time, swinging the mace at him as she moves. He backs up to avoid her, effectively dodging the hit. "Not fair."
"We never decided on the rules," she shoots back.
"Well I'm deciding now," he says. "Weapons only, no party tricks."
"You never let me have my way," she says, pouting at him.
He smiles again. "I do so. More than I should."
She skips backwards, adjusting her hold on the handle of the mace to reflect what he'd said earlier. He moves at her again, trying to slip around behind her. In one of her first actual fights on their way to Daila Temple, he'd warned her never to let anyone or anything get behind her in a fight, so with that in mind she spins to track him. She spots the mast in her peripheral vision and has a sudden flash of inspiration, hefting the mace in her hands. She runs at the mast and uses the mace like a pole-vault, spiking it into the ground to give herself a boost to run partway up the mast. She flips over Felix's head and then, holding the handle of the mace in both hands, catches it around his neck and lets her body weight drag him down to press the staff against his windpipe.
The chokehold proves effective, and he coughs out "I give," after a moment. She releases him, heading back to her side of the deck and settling back into a fighting stance.
He rubs at his throat as they begin circling each other again, and she can't hold back a triumphant little giggle. He scoffs at her. "I give you one round, and you think you've already won."
"You'd better start actually fighting, then," she says, and the words have barely left her mouth before he jumps at her. She dodges the swing but it was a close one, and they both know it. Before she has time to pull it together, he's tangled one of his long legs with hers, tripping her and bringing her down to the ground, blade pointed at her neck.
She simply lies there for a second on her back, eyes following the line of his sword up into his eyes, and it's only when she turns away to pick up her mace again that he steps back. She pushes herself to her feet, mace in hand, and rolls her shoulders a bit.
"Not so cocky now, hm?" he says.
"We're tied, shut up." She throws herself at him again, but she's tiring out already and he easily blocks her swing. She's not used to fighting someone with Felix's size or prowess, especially not by herself. But that's the point of sparring, she supposes.
She catches another one of his heavy swings downward with the long handle of her mace, and the impact of his blade smashing down makes her teeth rattle. He's bearing down on her hard enough that she can feel her legs shaking. A bead of sweat slides from her hairline and down her nose.
"Giving up?" he says, and he doesn't even sound winded. She sort of hates him for that.
"No." Gritting her teeth, she summons all the strength she has to push back and give herself just enough leverage to get out from the pressure of his sword. There's a gouge in the handle of her mace and she's not sure if it can withstand another hit without snapping in half, so she kicks him hard in the groin before he can bring his sword down on her again.
"Now that's fighting dirty, Sheba," Piers calls across the deck as Felix doubles over. She shrugs, and slams the handle of her mace into Felix's shoulder hard enough to bring him to his knees. He drops his sword and raises one hand in surrender.
"Just...give me two seconds. Ugh." He drops forward with one hand still curled over his stomach, the other bracing him on the deck. He glances up at her, grinning a little, with his hair draping over his face. "If any man ever gets handsy on you, and you don't like it, do that and run."
She laughs. "I will."
She helps him up, and for a moment she thinks he's going to say something else but then Jenna opens the door leading to the inside of the ship and leans out.
"Guys, Kraden and I are done with dinner. Get cleaned up."
"Can we eat on deck? It's so nice out," Sheba says, running her hand through her bangs.
"You should still shower," Jenna says. "You too, big brother."
After they've showered and straightened up to Jenna's satisfaction, she does indeed bring the meal out to the deck, and they eat while watching the setting sun, chatting idly. Felix joins Sheba where she sits on the stairs up to the prow of the ship, having finished his own food.
"So, I might never have children," he says abruptly, but the slight smirk on his face betrays the humor in his words.
She giggles uncomfortably. "I really am sorry about that! I ran out of ideas. To be honest, it was because I overestimated my own abilities with the mace. My balance got thrown all out of whack because the one end was so heavy."
He nods. "Yeah, I could tell it was wearing you out. But you do have the strongest Psynergetic abilities out of the four of us, I think. I've seen you keep casting long after I'm exhausted, so you've got that going for you."
"I just wish I could get a little better at actual fighting, just in case I ever can't use my Psynergy."
"I know, but even so I think you've really improved, Sheba. I'm proud of you."
Suddenly self-conscious, she looks away and fiddles with her fork. "Thanks, Felix."
"It's the truth. Remember back when you first joined up with us? You couldn't hit worth a damn with or without a weapon. Compare that with today—you gave me a couple bruises." There's a pause, and then he stretches, arms above his head, and Sheba hears a few joints pop.
"That sounded painful."
"I'm fine. Just getting old, is all."
"Aw, come on, Felix. You're what, eighteen? That's not old. Kraden's old. Piers is old."
"Never in all my years did I think I would be categorized with Kraden," Piers says, shaking his head as he guides the ship around a rock with one hand on the tiller. "I respect him, of course, he's a great scholar, but..."
"'In all your years,' huh? How many years would that be exactly?" Jenna asks, leaning next to the wheel to watch Piers, as if his expression would somehow give away his age.
"If you'll recall the last time we had this conversation, I believe you determined I am older than Kraden," he says.
"But we never decided what that meant. Felix, how old is Kraden, like over eighty?"
"How should I know? You had three more years in Vale than I did, you could've asked him then."
"I never thought about it..."
"I don't know if it's polite to bother someone about their age, anyway," Felix says, and Piers snaps his fingers.
"See? Felix understands."
"That's only relevant for women," Jenna says, shaking her head. "They say you should never ask a lady her age. Men are totally fair game."
"I'm positive you're misinterpreting that," Piers says, smiling in spite of himself.
"Really though, Piers, you know we're not going to drop this until you give an answer, right?"
"I'm aware. Have you ever thought that maybe I enjoy the game just as much as the three of you seem to?"
"Three? Hold on, don't lump me in with them," Felix protests. "I just helped you!"
"But you're still curious, aren't you? You're not making much more of an effort to stop them from badgering me," Piers shoots back.
"If we ever do guess your age right, will you tell us?" Sheba asks.
"Maybe, maybe not," he answers, shrugging.
"But we have a right to know," Jenna says, and Sheba agrees.
Eventually, Felix heads to bed and Piers shoos them off belowdecks so he can sail in peace. Sheba helps Jenna clean the dishes, and they head to their shared bedroom. As they get dressed for bed, Sheba poses her friend a question.
"What was Felix like growing up?"
"Quiet," Jenna says, shrugging and sitting on the edge of her bed. "But when he wanted to talk, he did. Mom and Dad said he never had a first word... Instead he had a first sentence."
"What was the sentence, did they tell you?"
"I don't remember. Probably something about food."
"So not much has changed," Sheba says, giggling, and Jenna nods.
"He did used to let me play with his hair, though. I learned how to braid and I practiced on him all the time."
"He always kept his hair long?"
"Yeah. Mom always said it made him look really handsome... I don't know if she was trying to reverse-psychology him into cutting it off or what, like 'oh no, Mom thinks I look good, I'd better rebel against her,' but he never did." Jenna pauses, and there's a little bit of an edge to her voice when she continues. "If he ever did have a rebellious phase, I think I missed it."
Sheba leans over to blow the candle out, and the two of them slide under the covers of their beds in unison. After a moment, Sheba speaks up again. "I only had one because I was allowed to get snippy. Getting kidnapped kinda takes a lot out of you."
"And Menardi never pulled her punches," Jenna agrees, and Sheba winces sympathetically. The Proxians had never hit Sheba, probably too afraid of breaking their newest tool, but she'd once watched in quiet horror as they went off on Jenna for standing up for her. Menardi had hit Jenna in the stomach, and the image of Felix kneeling on the ground, bent over her as he healed her would be forever burned into Sheba's brain.
"I never thanked you for that, did I?" she muses, staring up at the ceiling she can barely see in the darkness. Jenna's sheets rustle, Sheba assumes she'd shrugged.
"You never needed to. And besides, it's not like we've had a lot of down time."
"Well...thank you."
"What are friends for, anyway?" Sheba can hear the smile in Jenna's voice. "You're welcome."
Jenna's breathing deepens as she falls asleep, but Sheba has too many thoughts racing around in her own head to do the same. She'd been half hoping that sparring with Felix earlier would have been enough activity, but apparently her body doesn't think it was enough to compensate for the three days she'd spent unconscious. Instead, she lies there worrying about all the other times her friends had done something for her, and she hadn't said a word.